Every day it starts out the same.

I wake up, thanks to my alarm, and look at the clock. It's October 19th in Warroad, Minnesota, at close to the peak of autumn. 

It's always October 19th. I've been stuck on October 19th for the past several thousand days.

Like clockwork-- pun intended, given my situation-- the sun blinds me thanks to a tiny crack in the curtain and I roll out of bed to close it, before climbing back in under the covers, snuggling blankets to my canine fur. I'm in Warroad for a research paper, exploring the potential implications that Warroad's ice fishing tourism has on the local wildlife and ecosystem. It's for a column I'm writing for a magazine. I'm a freelance journalist, and it pays like shit. I make that complaint every day to myself...even today, when I've heard it countless times before.

28 minutes and 34 seconds after my alarm goes off, I get a knock on my door. It's housekeeping, wanting to come and clean too early in the morning. In the past, I argued with her at the door, but now I know the perfect thing to say to her. I remind her that she had a son in another state that could do with a shoulder to cry on right now, and she's sent scurrying. She doesn't know yet, but the light of her life, her son, recently broke up with his girlfriend, who had been abusive to him for the past 2 years. Once she finds out, she'll asks for the rest of the day off and her son drives out to move back with her for a while. Regardless, telling her what she needs to hear to leave saves me an additional 3 minutes and 4 seconds on top of the 48 minutes and 12 seconds I have until I get another knock on the door.

During that time, I do what every other mid 20's college graduate does. I masturbate and browse FurTok.

When someone knocks on my door again, I know it's unavoidable; it's my ride and friend, Jimmy. He's a college grad like me, working on the same company I am, but today's a little different. He tells me that there's a family emergency and he needs to drive back down to Minneapolis. Now, I know what you're thinking; seems like the prefect time to leave Warroad and get out of this weird time loop, right? Unfortunately, I've tried it countless times, and the outcome is always the same: whenever I leave, I undergo a 'freak accident' that ends up killing me and, to no-one's surprise, I wake up in the same motel room as I have done for the past three thousand or so days. October 19th, Warroad, Autumn...you get the idea.

Me staying here is inevitable, so I cut the conversation short enough to feign concern whilst also saving time. I tell him it's fine and to go, I can hitch a ride or just wait for him to drive back up-- either way, it's no big deal. He asks and questions over and over and I make some excuse to stay-- I've been over it so many times with him that I know exactly what to say, as if I'm reading from a script. Every possible outcome is ingrained in my memory.

Why am I trying to save so much time? You see, I've spent so long in Warroad that I know every nook and cranny of it's surface like the back of my hand...it's both fascinating and agonizing. Not only that, but I know every resident. I have talked to the same people over and over, day after day, until I know every facet of their life. Sometimes I pretend to be some supernatural creature who can read minds, and funnily enough they buy it, or other times I simply know what to say to coax some additional information out of them that I didn't know before. All of that is important to know, because there's one person I want to see, one person I always seek out: Cyrus.

I leave the motel and know the exact route to take that'll cause me to accidentally bump into him. I take a left onto the main road out of town, Slate Avenue, and walk until I cross the bridge beside Doc's Harbor. I take a right turn onto Lake Street North-East and pick up the pace a little, and act as if I'm not looking where I'm going as I pass the coffee company outlet. At that very moment, Cyrus will walk out of the pharmacy, and if I keep my head down I won't be able to 'notice him' in time to stop myself. It plays out exactly how I've done it so many times before, and we're both sent stumbling, with enough force to deliberately knock myself over. Cyrus is a man who wears his heart on his sleeve. He immediately tries to help me, and once again I'm greeted to the sight of him, in his morning getup.

Cyrus is a rugged brown-furred canine with a shaggy mop of hair, a crooked grin and a black muzzle. He's close to a German Shepherd, but I know that he's something of a mutt, an amalgam of various canine species to the point where even he can't place it. He asks me if I'm okay and I nod along and make a joke, one that I know he'll like. He has the sense of humour of a man in his 40's and he appreciates a bit of dry wit as well as a good pun. When he goes to leave, I stop him, and make an excuse to make up for the fact that I bumped into him. Like always, he declines at first, but when I insist and offer to get him coffee at Lake of the Woods, he relents. Cyrus loves coffee, almost as much as he loves that old forest-green sweater he's wearing. It was his brothers, who died when Cyrus was a kid.

I buy coffee to go and we walk. Cyrus would never want to sit and talk, and it's easier to get him to be open when he's got something in his hand and something to look at. I ask all the right questions to get him to speak a bit more about himself, but I already know everything he has to say. I know what his childhood was like, riddled with the grief of his brother's disappearance. I remember the nights I sat with him as he cried, reliving the day his parent's got the call that they'd found his body. I remember him angrily venting and resenting his parents who made him life in the shadow of his brother's passing until he moved out, unable to take it any more. Every facet, every emotion, even the times when I've upset him, angered him enough to hit me...I remember it all, but he never will. To him, I'm a stranger. No-one ever remembers what happened when the day repeats, except me.

We talk for a while longer and I easily navigate his words and my own to reach an optimal outcome. To me, it's like picking the right option in the Dating Sim...I've become to disillusioned with my situation that I'm treating it, and people, like objects and characters in a game. What else can I do, when nothing I ever do changes anything? The detachment, if anything, helps to fight off the nauseating insanity of my situation. Regardless, Cyrus is frankly easy to manipulate...I should feel guilty, but I'm not. In fact, I find it exciting-- I'm enthralled by him. He's attractive, he has a great personality, and I feel relaxed around him. Yet as much as we talk, as much as I listen, I can't help but be mindful of the time. Minute after minute...I'm always counting, always checking.

It starts to get late into the day. We've been hanging out essentially all day, but Cyrus doesn't make any mention of prior engagements-- I know he doesn't have any, anyway. He works in retail, but has the dya off. I make some kind of excuse for him to come back to the motel I'm staying at, just for a while. At first, he resists the idea, but I make it seem so harmless that he eventually seems inclined to the idea. To him, it's just a dent in his day, but to me...it's everything. I direct him back there with ease, and before the sun has gone down, we're in the privacy of my motel room. It's quiet, a little dingy, and cramped...but it will suit just fine for what I want.

All it takes is the right few words to get him into bed with me. I remember every contour of his muscles, every pound of his heart. I remember how he tastes, how he smells, the way he grunts...though it's all so familiar, all so achingly average, it drives me crazy. The craving is immeasurable. In this horrible scenario, where I relive the same day over and over, the one thing I can't get enough of is him, his moans of passion, his seed. Like I do every time, I lose track of time. He fucks me over and over. I like to think that he can't get enough of me as much as I can't get enough of him, but it's hard to tell. When he kisses me, however, I feel like I can read his mind.

When it's all over, the outcome is always the same. I'm left satisfied, and he's left drained of energy. Sometimes I mix things up and top, sometimes I let him be rough with me, but most of the time, just feeling his passion until he lays spooning with me, asleep, is enough for me. Today is no different...though it feels wrong to say 'today'. 

I feel that warmth and hold it close. I press my head to the pillow and drift off, hoping, begging for it all to be over. Please...I just want it to be October 20th. I want to feel him cuddled up beside me in the morning. My dreams are empty. I can't even have a dream about him, nor a nightmare. I can't feel or think anything, and the night passes in the blink of an eye.

I wake up, thanks to my alarm, and look at the clock. It's October 19th in Warroad, Minnesota, at close to the peak of autumn.

The cycle repeats.

For the first time in a few hundred days, I cover my eyes with my arm and cry.

I can't take it any more.